Expats in Oz - So what is it that you really miss about England

[pickupthismess]

We are really very seriously considering a move to Melbourne. I read a thread on the city with interest but I wondered what it is (other than family) that Australia really can't deliver that the UK can? I am trying to weigh our options up before we get too embedded in the visa process.

You can get M&S shipped over - don't know about Boden, but I imagine so.

If M&S and Waitrose opened up here they would make an absolute killing - anyone have the ear of the big bosses?!

I know this is a tragic thing to admit, but if M&S opened up here I would be more thrilled than I care to explain.....

Foxtel is the same as Sky.

Boden deliver, it costs 12 quid for a delivery to Oz.

Ozzie that's not tragic at all. Waitrose, M & S and Boots please

Thanks - DH wants to know if you get BBC1 and Channel 4 (he must be thinking of Match of the Day).

I wonder if I could run a Waitrose franchise!

Foxtel show British sport apparently - remember the footy will be on live at about 2am though.

You can get M&S shipped over? Cor, the things you learn. Actually, I find I can get a lot of things shipped over - I buy all my lingerie from Bravissimo, for example - it's just that shipping rates vary wildly.

No BBC1 or Channel 4 - Foxtel gives us BBC News, CBeebies, "UKTV", and a bunch of other things like BBC World and some BBC documentary channels. So you probably get most of the same stuff, differently distributed (? someone who has been in England more recently than me can tell you if this is true). I definitely wouldn't recommend going cable-free, though. Australian commercial has not improved.

Do any of you live in Melbourne and Perth? We are tossing up (leaning heavily towards Melbourne).

Good News Week was so much better when it was on the ABC.

Pick up this mess - ahh Tony Barbar and Alice Platt...now that brings back memories.

I have to admit that I am going to miss English supermarkets when I move back home. I mean Woolies and Coles cannot compete with tesco and waitrose.

Boden do deliver to Australia. I get things sent to my mum.

Oh yes, Boots would be lovely to have. I have got used to Priceline though and I'm sure it does save me hundreds of dollars a year, given that I used to go into Boots wanting cotton balls and come out 100 pounds lighter....

Australian TV is terrible, Foxtel is a necessity for me, and I don't even watch loads of TV to be honest. Having only Ozzie TV makes me feel weirdly cut off from the rest of the world.

If we're talking shops, it would be rather nice to have LK Bennett as well. But I can live without it.

M&S, Boots, Waitrose I would LOVE though and shop at exclusively, even if they were more expensive.

ooh I pine for Waitrose, I do, I do. Even Tesco to be fair (but then we had a very good Tesco in walking distance from our house in England - I didn't realise quite how good until I was back there in January and went to a couple of others - nothing like as good!)

I don't miss Boots all that much though except for their BTGOF on supplements (still taking pregnacare in hope ).

Still there are benefits - just been for a drive round our local kangaroo park (the mental hospital here has several large mobs of kangaroos) which is right on our doorstep, as it were. I'll only really start to worry when I get tired of seeing kangaroos!

pickupthismess, I don't have any personal experience of Perth but a friend of mine tried moving out there with her Aussie fiancé a few years ago - she couldn't stand it, said it was a city with "small town mentality". Melbourne is much more cosmopolitan, I believe.

You could try going on other fora, like PomsinOz.com for e.g., and ask there about the differences.

I don't know Perth but I really like Melbourne - it's a pretty cool city, good shops, nice atmosphere, plus lots of lovely stuff around there like the Mornington Peninsula and Great Ocean Road.

Hello ladies in Oz,

I am an Australian in London and have to agree with you all, Coles and Wollies are very crap and expensive compared to the massive variety of supermarkets here.

In regards to a Waitrose in Australia, David Jones opened a shop called Foodhall about five years ago ( Similar to waitrose) in select suburbs in sydney and Melbourne but they all closed in a year, Australians are lazy when it comes to supermarket shopping and only tend to do one HUGE shop a week, unlike the Brits who seem to pop into the supermarket every day !.

The newspapers and TV are crap, but at least the Divorce of a singer and footballer at not front page ( even in the Times ).

I don't think you are complaining just when you live in a country you dont have "history" with you will always miss things.

Good Luck to you all, just popping into M&S on the way to school !

Thx

So clearly I am going to have to factor in costs of shipping Boden and M&S to Australia and a subscription to Foxtel. Wonder if I could get my Waitrose deliver too LOL. WHat is so bad about Aussie supermarkets. I remember when I went to the States a few years ago, I was shocked by how totally crap their supermarkets were - maybe similar in Oz.

Do any of you have kids at school? How do you find the state system?

It's difficult to explain why the supermarkets are bad - mostly it's in comparison with what you can get in the UK, so you notice the differences.

In themselves, they're not really that bad, I suppose - the range of milk products is interesting as an e.g. - I've never seen so many different types of milk as I have here! But I can't get a decent full fat bio-live yoghurt range (like Yeo Valley for e.g.) because everyone here is fully locked into the low fat con.

Two things I really do appreciate about Australia that really wound me up when I visited the UK:

1. the sausages here are nearly all beef and nearly all gluten free (am wheat intolerant and don't eat pork)
2. the range of gluten-free products is better here than it is in the UK and you can still get Sakata (and other brands) rice crackers here.

DS is still under school age so can't help with the last part.

Oooh, is it really crass of me to advertise a site I'm involved with on here? Embrace Australia. It's a fairly new site and it aims to give people info about emigrating to Australia, holiday tips, that sort of thing. It has a community too and we desperately need more Brits to sign up for it.

Please let me know what you think of the site if you have time. Sorry for the hijack but I thought it fairly relevant to what you were discussing.

(We welcome contributions to the site too)

You should be able to get Boursin at a big Coles - it's certainly in my local one, but admittedly a fairly poncey neighbourhood.

Supermarkets are very expensive compared to the UK - it's pretty much a duopoly and you'll pay what they damn well want to charge. Even the cheapest brand of nappies works out at about 30p each, which I gather is astronomical compared to the UK.

Good housing in cities is mind-bogglingly expensive relative to local wages. You'll be alright if you're coming with a big slab of juicy London equity behind you, but if you want to have than about a 45 minute commute, you'll have to pay for it.

TV is beyond shit. We download everything from the UK.

sorry, meant if you want to have a commute of less than 45 mins, obv.

Trouble is, ninedragons, I live out in the "country" apparently - I've checked all the Coles and Woolworths near to us in about a 50km radius and not found it - perhaps I'd need to be getting it from Sydney? Otherwise I might have to beg you to send me some!

Nappies are beyond expensive - I use the Nature Care ones and a pack of 34 here costs $AU 21.99 , which at current exchange rates is over £13, whereas the same pack costs £5.99 in Boots and Tesco. Organic food is viciously expensive here too, like it used to be in the UK about 10 years ago.

In regards to the supermarkets in Australia. Most Australians I know (middle class) would not go to Coles/Wollies for their meat, they would go to a fantastic butcher, who has the most amazing meats and prepared sauces,marinades etc and I would ALWAYS go to a fruitshop/greengrocer to buy my fruit & veges.I would go to the Fish Shop to buy seafood and I would always buy my Bread from a Bakery and so the supermarkets are only for groceries.

In Melbourne there are fantastic suburubs that have ther best markets for meat/fruit etc (Camberwell, Victoria Markets, Sth Melbourne). The berries in the UK taste so much better than in Australia so eat as many strawberries as you can.

In regards to Boden, if you move to Melbourne you wont need it. In melbourne there are wonderful clothes shops that sell lovley clothes for the same price as a Boden outfit. You can find wonderful little childrens shops in many suburbs of Melbourne and most mums I know seem to find lovely clothes without resorting to ordering from a catalogue.

Good Luck with your decision, We are moving back to Melbourne in August and I know I will miss something...such as the shops....But i will not miss the driving here,parking in Wimbledon, Pressure on my six year old at school and the Politicans that run the UK.

If you want any info about schools in Melbourne I can help.

Thank you for this thread. DH and I are thinking about moving to Sydney, so it is really useful.

Rhubarb, I will have a look at your site.

Running - I've just done a migrational guide to Sydney on the site! Full of info on where to live, education, healthcare, transport, property prices etc. Took me ages it did!

newtouk, can you peek at my guide to Melbourne? You might want to add something.

agree with newtouk about the meat and fish, but we don't have a greengrocers in our town. (despite it being the "country"!)
I have to get special bread anyway so get that from the health food shop (much better range of speciality breads here too)

Rhubs, I will have a look at your site later but doubt I'll be much use - small "country" towns are probably not in your remit, are they?

Great info. Will definitely check out the website. newtouk do you live in the city or outside. We are country people and I don't think we'd cope living in the heart of a city (or even a v built up suburb).

Have been flip flopping about Sydney because I hear the weather is better and the beaches are good. But Dh dead set against sydney.

Am most worried that DH finds good work. A few people have mentioned financial suicide and I have a sense that we are about to commit it. DH is on a six figure salary and good bonus + excellent shares here (no he's not a banker!). But I know he is at the end of his tether.

I keep scanning the jobs' market in Oz and it is quite clear that jobs like his are not advertised. He is quite happy to downssize because he is so fed up with the stress of being a Senior Exec but I keep worrying for the kids' future or in case things go wrong and we have to return to the UK.

Do you think well paid jobs exist in Melbourne?

What are CBDs by the way? (Central Business Districts???)

yes, that's what a CBD is.

Good jobs do exist in Australia, have you looked at any agencies in Australia yet to see whether they have anything to offer your DH? Might be worth a look.

What does your DH have against Sydney??